


bewitched (body and soul)

by songbird97



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pride and Prejudice Fusion, Georgian Period, M/M, Pride and Prejudice References, Romance, Sarcasm, Unresolved Sexual Tension, basically it's that one dance scene from P&P that makes me scream into a pillow every time i see it, literally this was painful to write, what else can i tag this as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 22:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13690722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbird97/pseuds/songbird97
Summary: Haruka breathes. Yamazaki looks at him, jaw set, expression unwavering, but his eyes are different, brighter, rooting Haruka to the ground where he stands. They are always like this, and somehow Haruka has always noticed, from the moment they’d met, and it’s been frustrating each time.(Or, a brief Pride & Prejudice AU of that one breathtaking dance scene. Happy Valentine's Day!)





	bewitched (body and soul)

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentine's!! i was stressed and listening to the pride and prejudice soundtrack and when the song for this scene came on - my favorite scene in the movie - i knew i had to write it, since it would be manageably short and i could likely crank it out in time. i'm a bit late, but it's still valentine's somewhere!
> 
> karo, who is a wonderful artist and an even more wonderful friend, drew [this after i spilled to her what i was writing](https://twitter.com/agaricals/status/963909450959638533). i burst into tears when i saw it - i really, _really_ love this scene. i'll also link it in the text at the appropriate time. also, you should probably listen to [the song that brought this fic about](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ouMlUZt9DI). seriously. it's gorgeous.
> 
> as a side note, there are direct quotes in here from the 2005 movie, as well as even fewer from the book - seriously, if you can spot those, congratulations. some things have been changed for laziness' sake - this is a world where no one would blink twice at two men marrying, because convenience. there is also no mr. wickham equivalent here; instead of asking sousuke about him haru asks about rin. plus nakagawa is a makeshift mr. collins bc i didn't have the heart to make anyone important from the show that boring and distasteful. sue me. 
> 
> also, i've been slowly but surely working on a full-length fic for this au so pls let me know if i'm doing it justice. if i'm not, feel free to hit me over the head with that opinion. i'd hate to disgrace austen as such //shot
> 
> EDIT: realizing now that some ppl might not be familiar with the context, i'll fill you in as well as i can for what i've imagined with this AU. haru had a less than desirable first encounter with sousuke that led to his immediate dislike, which was exacerbated by sousuke's arrogance and overall disdain towards literally everyone as well as negative (and misled) personal accounts haru's heard from those around him. on the other hand, sousuke's in the heavy midst of falling deeply in love with haru against his better judgment -- family status and all that. 
> 
> i hope you enjoy ♡

Haruka’s unwavering enjoyment in attending dances, given his unwillingness to commit to a single partner as well as his dislike of crowded areas, has long been a mystery to his friends and family, but hasn’t been of any confusion for Haruka himself—though he can’t explain it well. If the music fits, and the room is warm, and it gives him a reason to step away from his overbearing mother and the nagging of his friends he will always choose dancing above anything else, particularly conversation, and particularly tonight.

Certainly, particularly tonight.

There are already too many people outside, he can see while climbing down from the carriage—Haruka doesn’t want to think about how many must be cluttering the hallways or the stairs or the ballroom, but maybe he should have expected this. The Matsuoka family doesn’t often have parties while visiting here; as far as he knows they’re all held elsewhere, in larger towns, in bigger houses, bigger ballrooms with ceilings that stretch to the sky. Haruka wonders what it would be like, to dance somewhere like that.

“Unimpressed?” Makoto asks, beside him, guessing because Makoto always has to guess. And he’s smiling, like he knows something, so Haruka frowns.

“It’s fine,” he says, and lets Makoto tugs himself a bit closer by the fabric at his elbow, ducking out of the way from others passing by, servers with trays. “Loud.”

“Events such as this are always going to be loud, Haru,” Makoto laughs, but there is part of it that scolds Haruka to silence because they’re close now, watching Makoto’s mother politely bow to Matsuoka and his sister; he doesn’t hear what she says, but he imagines that it is something as transparently polite as she always is.

Makoto clutches a bit tighter to his elbow when she steps away, and Haruka’s already feeling a bit of embarrassment for him, for what he will or won’t say. They step in front of the Matsuokas together and bow, and Makoto releases him only when they start to turn inside.

“I’m—” Matsuoka starts to say, though, sounding a bit winded. Haruka looks but Makoto must have been looking already, because he two of them are staring at each other. “I’m pleased that you could make it,” Matsuoka manages, an untempered smile taking hold of him. He looks handsome, smile sharp, hair gathered low at the nape of his neck in a ribbon and his jacket broadening his shoulders more than usual—if Haruka couldn’t see the way Makoto was tensing beside him he would feel it, in the nervous energy he douses himself in.

Eventually Makoto says, “As am I,” and smiles easily. Matsuoka’s sister is regarding him deadpan, and Haruka can relate to the calculation in her eyes, much as he doesn’t appreciate it being directed at Makoto.

“And how are you this evening, Nanase-san?” Matsuoka asks suddenly, and Haru quickly turns to look at him.

“Just fine,” he says, after a momentary struggle. “Thank you. Admiring the general splendor.”

Makoto must see an opportunity in this because blurts, rather abruptly, “It’s extraordinary here.”

Haruka fights a smile—Matsuoka looks momentarily surprised but it fades into sincere gratitude, and he beams upon saying, “I’m very glad to hear you think so.”

And with that, Makoto takes his elbow once again, and they head inside.

Staying together lasts for all of thirty seconds before Makoto catches Haruka’s hardly sympathetic smirk, drops his face into his hands and mourns, “I am in desperate need of champagne already.”

“So quickly,” Haruka sighs. “He was choking on his tongue just as clearly as you were.”

“Haru!”

“You’ve spoken to him, at least,” Haruka points out, because it’s more than Makoto has been able to accomplish in their most recent sightings. Although generally not far from Matsuoka is consistently Yamazaki—and this thought leaves something thick in Haruka’s chest—so he hasn’t found much to complain about regarding the distance taken. “Go. You’ll know where to find me.”

So he wanders, with Makoto lost from his side, for a bit. The ceilings _are_ tall here, taller than he’d expected and than what he’s used to, the dances in Iwatobi—but it is crowded nonetheless. He has to make a point of stepping around and not making eye contact for the sake of not being caught in conversation; the dancing has yet to begin but when it does he’ll be there, and he’ll get his feet to be sore and his face to ache from holding back smiles, will drag Makoto in to dance with him even though he’s clumsy on his feet and hates to do it more than he has to. He’ll enjoy that tonight. When he gets the chance.

A short, blonde blur hurries in front of him, takes his hands—and just like this his peace is gone, but maybe not horrendously so.

“Haru-chan!” Nagisa sings, bright and bouncing and smiling wide, and Haruka sighs.

“Nagisa,” he says, taking notice to the very empty space beside him. “Where is Rei?”

“I was just now looking for him,” Nagisa says, lower lip jutting out. His hair is combed neatly, or neater than it ever is, and when a curl bounces loose Haruka huffs and reaches up to smooth it down. “I’ve started to think that his mother took him off while I wasn’t looking,” he says, nudging Haruka’s hand with the crown of his head. “She doesn’t like me very much.”

“I doubt that with all of my heart,” Haruka says, and he means it. “Let’s go look together.”

Affectionate as he is, Nagisa takes one of Haruka’s hands with both of his own and follows him into one of the sitting rooms, where a large fire blooms heat into the thinner crowd of visitors gathered around, and through into another when they wear out their luck. There are instruments being carried one by one through the halls now, to the main ballroom where soon they’ll begin playing for everyone to dance, but Haruka will find Rei for Nagisa first.

“He’s watching you,” Nagisa says, though, suddenly, and Haruka sends him confusion in a look thrown over his shoulder.

Nagisa is smiling, though he looks mostly curious, and his eyes are across the room. Haruka follows them, and his heart seizes.

“Sou-chan,” Nagisa chirps.

Across the room, Yamazaki stands amidst his family, tall and far too noticeable. Far too much so.

Haruka straightens his spine, rolls his shoulders back. “I can’t imagine he would appreciate you referring to him in such a way.”

“He hasn’t asked me to call him by any other name,” Nagisa points out, smirking, but by now Yamazaki is watching them, if he wasn’t before. The collar of his coat is pulled high, his clothing all browns and reds and a stripe of white from the shirt underneath, ruffling out at the sleeves and neckline. His eyes are dark and curious and he looks very much as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t, yet he holds Haruka’s eyes nonetheless.

Haruka breathes. Yamazaki looks at him, jaw set, expression unwavering, but his eyes are different, brighter, rooting Haruka to the ground where he stands. They are always like this, and somehow Haruka has always noticed, from the moment they’d met, and it’s been frustrating each time. Such eyes are meant for someone who should be willing to say as much as they reflect, or express something other than conceit or apathetic disregard. And truly. If he weren’t so insufferable—if he weren’t so arrogant, so disdainful in everything, in the very way he holds himself—if that were the case, maybe Haruka would allow this tightness in his chest to mean something other than incredulity.

“Haru-chan?” Nagisa prompts, nudging the back of his shoulder with his forehead, squeezing his hand. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Haruka says too quickly, pulling his eyes away. He breathes and tugs Nagisa forward. “Come along.”

“There you are,” comes a voice, though, close enough for Haruka to know he is not simply overhearing—though perhaps he should have pretended that he had, because Nakagawa is tightly dressed and stiff-standing, eyes hardly meeting Haruka’s.

Nonetheless shock finds Haruka quickly enough to dizzy him. “Nakagawa-san,” he says, and manages a bow, which is mirrored in return.

“I was hoping that perhaps you would do me the honor, Nanase-san,” he says, and tips his head toward the ballroom.

Haruka blinks, looks to Nagisa—who looks just as stunned as he is. “I … did not think you danced.”

“I don’t think it incompatible with a man of my position to indulge in—well, what I might call an innocent diversion,” he states, both eyebrows raised. And Haruka thinks, unsympathetically but perhaps a bit amusedly, that he truly is unimaginably boring. “In fact several people have complimented me on my lightness of foot.”

Beside Haruka, Nagisa stifles a laugh, squeezes his hand tight and then releases him.

Haruka has to act similarly for the dance that follows, tempering a grin that doesn’t want to stay hidden; in any case, he’s managed to pull Makoto into this with him, and he stands by his side, across from a stranger who’s lucky enough to have his partnership. Haruka looks at him, meets his nervous glance—turns away from Nakagawa’s stiff boredom—and widens his eyes a bit, and Makoto chokes on a laugh, anxiety gone for the time being.

For once, the dance lasts too long. Nakagawa tries in a far too difficult manner to hold his gaze, to speak to him in the brief moments that they come close enough— _if I may be so bold_ —or circle each other long enough— _it is my intention_ —to make the time spent truly excruciating, if it weren’t already— _to remain close to you throughout the evening_.

Well then. He may certainly not be so bold; though he takes no notice to Haruka’s struggle with amusement and second-hand humiliation at his own hand. It is painful, to say the least, and Haruka might take pity on him, if Haruka were a man of strength in empathy.

He usually isn’t.

When the dance ends Makoto supplies him with a look of sympathy, or of concern—but Haruka isn’t so disquieted in the disappointment of his parents such that he wouldn’t dare reject any offer of a hand he couldn’t possibly be tempted to take. So he doesn't offer Makoto much of a look in return, just lets Nagisa take his wrists and laugh openly, and finally allows himself that smile. And before Nakagawa can follow they leave the room on fast feet.

“Forget his partnership now, Haru-chan; we’ll quickly find you another,” Nagisa is saying, though bouts of laughter bubbling out of him like champagne, “one that won’t look like he’d rather be dead—and if we're hard-pressed he will simply have to deal with me taking hold of you for the rest of the night!”

Haruka certainly has enjoyed dancing with Nagisa in the past, but the thought of dancing with him for the sole purpose of avoidance, the idea of watching a stiff-necked Nakagawa looking stoically upon them is so tragically amusing that he huffs a quiet laugh, then turns a corner too quickly, and without looking.

He only stops because Nagisa does, taking a rough hold on his arm and rooting him in place. And here he registers the wall of a body in front of him, the broad shoulders and square chest and strictly unfeeling expression—and blue eyes that betray the rest of him in their life, in the way they shine.

Haruka holds his breath without meaning to, because it’s been blocked in his throat by too many things to say all at once. He means to say at least one of them, but Yamazaki gets there first.

“Nanase,” he says, gentle in a way that doesn’t match his outward demeanor in the slightest. His face is downturned. “May I have the next dance?”

Haruka blinks. In and of itself it is a very simple question. One that’s been asked of Haruka so many times it may very well be habit when he responds, robotically, “You may.”

Yamazaki holds his eyes once more. The frustration returns. Then Yamazaki nods, just once and quickly, and his eyes leave Haruka’s to look at the rest of him, to take him fully in, and Haruka feels scrutinized and small and everything he shouldn’t have to feel here, after agreeing to an activity he’s always taken so much joy in, but Yamazaki turns and walks away and Haruka finds he never began to breathe.

So he releases the air in his lungs, loudly and through his nose, and yanks Nagisa to one side so abruptly he yelps—the nearest empty room is dark and the door is mostly shut but no one stops them from entering so Haruka pulls Nagisa inside, yanks him around the wall and says, disbelief shrouded in darkness, “I just agreed to dance with Yamazaki.”

Nagisa laughs once more, though it is saturated, soaked with amazement. “I daresay you might enjoy his presence, Haru-chan,” he teases, and Haruka scoffs, something bubbling in his chest that isn’t laughter but certainly wants to escape him. “Do you really expect it to be so terrible?”

“I expect it to be most inconvenient,” Haruka says, deadpan. “Seeing as I’ve sworn to loathe him for all eternity.”

Nagisa clutches Haruka's face and makes a noise of disbelief, high-pitched and overwhelmed, and pulls him, like this, back out into the hallway.

There’s just one pull of a bow across strings in the beginning, when Haruka meets Yamazaki’s eyes across the narrow gap in the ballroom. It seems more of a void now, meeting stormy eyes above it, one that Haruka should dare not step into but will, oh, he will. Because Yamazaki looks arguably _displeased,_ and if nothing else Haruka can take pleasure in this, in carving new lines of frustration into every disdainful expression he makes.

They both step forward, and Haruka holds tight to the opportunity. He says, quietly, “I enjoy this dance.”

“Indeed,” Yamazaki replies, immediately so, which takes Haruka by surprise. He takes Haruka’s hands and his own are warm, uncalloused, undoubtedly due to hardly ever having to lift a finger for anything in his life. “Most invigorating.”

He says nothing else, which does not take Haruka by surprise. They take the next few steps together in silence, releasing hands and joining them once more, only to release them again. He does like this dance—even while his partner is barely tolerable, silent, unwilling to try and make this anything other than truly haunting.

“It should be your turn to say something, Yamazaki,” he prods, expressionless, choosing pointedly not to bother with an honorific. He lifts an eyebrow but holds his mouth downturned.  “I offered my opinion on the dance. Now you ought to remark on the size of the room or the number of couples. Something to carry us through.”

It’s clear that Yamazaki is fighting whatever he’s feeling from showing on his face. “I’m perfectly happy to oblige,” he says though, quietly. And as he passes, quieter, “Allow me the knowledge of what you would like most to hear.”

Haruka steps by him, loses sight of his face, and scoffs. “That reply will do on its own,” he says gravely—though as he catches sight of the desperate confusion that’s since taken hold of Yamazaki’s eyes when they come around again, he finds a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth, a feeling made familiar tonight. “If it suits you, I could observe that private balls are much more pleasant than public ones.”

But this does not aid the unwillingness Yamazaki seems to hold for conversation, even as much as he watches Haruka when they meet in the middle and turn downward together. And it’s that frustration coming around again that subdues any amusement Haruka might have been feeling or what would have had the opportunity to feel further—why ask for a dance if his intention wasn’t conversation, or some other form of communication that wouldn’t leave everything feeling so stifling? Haruka would much rather dislike him from afar, otherwise be convinced to tolerate his presence up close, but nothing of the sort has come about from this. Not even slightly.

“I suppose we’ll remain silent,” he says, irritated, and though he isn’t looking, he catches askance the way Yamazaki turns to look at him by his side, maybe struggles to catch his gaze again or just tries to read Haruka’s expression because it lasts longer than anticipated. Haruka feels it even as he turns away a bit more, Yamazaki’s shoulder beside his, his hand twitching closer, his eyes driving warmth thick with an unmatched intensity into the side of him, of his neck, the edge of his jaw. He has few times felt so watched.

They separate once more, and in turning to face each other Yamazaki asks, “Do you talk, as a rule, while dancing?”

This catches Haruka by surprise only because it doesn’t feel entirely like an insult—still, he fits incredulity into the curve of his mouth. “No,” he says, locking his hands behind his back. “No, I prefer to be unsociable and taciturn.” It is pointed, and made to match the level of near-offense, and Yamazaki blinks fittingly, like he’s surprised. Haruka comes closer than perhaps what is needed; and tips his face to fit just by Yamazaki's shoulder. “Makes it all so much more enjoyable, wouldn’t you agree?”

Yamazaki’s mouth drops open, but he closes it again and quietly clears his throat. Now, once more, Haruka fights a gentle smirk.

“Tell me,” Yamazaki says, in a bit of a rush, “do you and these friends of yours—Hazuki and Tachibana, that is. Do you often walk to town?”

Oddly misplaced in a conversation he doesn’t seem to want to have, but perhaps Haruka should stop trying to understand what Yamazaki wants. “Yes,” he says instead, glancing at Yamazaki sidelong. “I don’t much care for it, but they both appreciate the opportunity to meet new people.” And then, because he has the opportunity, “In fact when you’d met us we’d only just had the pleasure of forming a new acquaintance with the man you appear to spend the majority of your time with.”

At the mention of Matsuoka, Yamazaki almost seems to look remorseful, but he threads his composure back together immediately—what a shame. “Rin is quite comfortable in forming new associations, so I’m unsurprised.” Then he says, much more deeply, “Whether those around him value his enthusiasm is less certain.”

“Yet he’s been fortunate enough to retain your friendship,” Haruka immediately retorts, keeping his eyes on the floor now, feeling that thickness from earlier spread from his chest down through to his fingertips, the soles of his feet. “I feel as though I could assume that’s a permanent event.”

“It is,” Yamazaki says firmly, and when they step close again he looks at Haruka with such conviction it causes him to forget to move again altogether—amidst the other dancers they pause, stuck in the center of the void. “Is there a reason you would suggest otherwise?”

“I suggested nothing,” Haruka says, feeling as though he’s rising to a challenge. “Yamazaki. You should consider I’m only trying to make out your character.”

“And what have you discovered in your curiosity about this?” Yamazaki demands, eyes madly searching his face. He is close enough for Haruka to count the lines pulling frustration at the corners of his eyes.

“Very little,” Haruka admits, gently. “I hear such different accounts of you as to puzzle me exceedingly.”

Something gives. Yamazaki’s chest sinks considerably, and he steps to the side, holding steadfast to Haruka’s eyes even still. He says, with a voice like wind over water, “I hope to afford you more clarity in the future.”

It rings higher now, this music, or maybe this new quiet between Yamazaki and himself closes Haruka up simply into believing so. They come out of their stillness, meet once again with the steps of the dance, fade into the crowd but just as soon as they're there the void collapses and the room blots together. Faces fade into unfamiliarity and then disappear altogether, and meeting Yamazaki’s gaze feels new all over again each time, flooding Haruka chest- and neck- and existence-deep, in over his head with confusion, with the desire to understand this eagerness to retort, to be pulled apart at his very seams.

Yamazaki watches him, regards him with such intensity Haruka feels akin to something rare and undetermined, and maybe this lack of understanding is mutual—maybe it pulls at Yamazaki more than it does Haruka much in the way the music pulls them together again, joins their hands at their palms and the tips of their fingers and their eyes somewhere deeper than this, the physical sense, the material existence which keeps Yamazaki so much farther above Haruka than perhaps he belongs. And there is something deeper than dislike here, thick like fascination and dangerous like dread, and Haruka wants to turn away but Yamazaki doesn’t let him, reaches into him with something that might be inadvertent but that circles around the base of his spine and presses and pulls, splits him open so deeply his loses his breath, has to draw in air when they pass shoulders again.

They continue to say no more, and yet Haruka’s mouth feels stuffed with cotton like it’s been dried up with conversation—and they circle one another in an empty stretch of hall, move past in a void lacking clarity, on each side dissatisfied, though not to an equal degree, for within Yamazaki there seems to be something powerful towards which Haruka feels he cannot match and perhaps couldn’t if he tried. It is all-encompassing, though, this much is clear, for his outward struggle is brief but is also the only clear thing about him Haruka has managed to take note of all night, or as long as they’ve known each other.

He is fierce, yes—this much Haruka has known from the moment they’d met. But he is also gentle here, unexpectedly so, in his grace while he moves and in the uncertainty in his eyes, in the way he looks as though he’s longing for something.

Haruka’s mind has wandered from the dance but his feet move regardless, feels just as graceful or something closer to what it might feel like to float, drifting upon the platform that Yamazaki has asked of him to step to. This is perhaps most concerning of all—he has been asked here, and he has come, and no one has ever held so tightly to his outward passion before, let alone when it is a passion of such bewilderment or dislike.

But here, just briefly, in the swell of violins and the dust of expensive chandeliers and the absence of any importance of anything else but the steps of the dance, of the space between them that slips out of clarity, [Yamazaki is beautiful](https://twitter.com/agaricals/status/963909450959638533). And he glows, so brightly.

It ends, though, as it must. Haruka shakes off the gravity of it, steps into line with the dancers he’s forgotten, who he couldn’t recognize now if he tried, and the song slows when he bows, Yamazaki a mirrored image across from him. His eyes falls from Haruka’s and watch his mouth—he is waiting.

But Haruka can think of nothing to say, and if he could he’d desire not to give Yamazaki any more satisfaction than he’s already been generous enough to grant him tonight. Instead he applauds the musicians, breathes in the afterglow and the swell of conversation that rumbles around them, and regards the expression of abandon Yamazaki looks upon him with.

Privately, he bows again. Then he turns away and walks through the crowd, toward Nagisa, toward Makoto, toward the people who bring about a happy energy than whatever this is, whatever the thickness in his throat calls upon him to say. And he ignores the feeling of something stepping on his heels, that wraps around his soul and tugs and might for the rest of the night, pleading with him to turn around once more.

“Well,” Makoto says when he approaches, hands neatly clasped in his lap.

“Well,” Haruka echoes, though speaking now feels like he’s betraying something inside. He opens his mouth to say more, to disclose nothing, however—

“You've taken me by surprise,” comes a voice, feminine and askance—Haruka turns, and Matsuoka Gou has appeared beside Nagisa, who looks just as surprised as Haruka feels. “I was close to certain you would say no, when Sousuke informed me he would ask you to dance.”

Many things about this are curious to Haruka, but he quells it. “I find it interesting myself that he would have felt the need to inform you in the first place,” he says, and at her look, frowns. “Madam.”

“Sir,” she says quietly, bows, and walks past.

Makoto looks uneasy. “Haru—”

“Don’t,” Haruka says gently, closing his eyes. “It’s been done.”

Nagisa steps forward, takes Haruka’s face in his hands again. “You looked like a prince from here, Haru-chan,” he says, beaming and bright and familiar, and it helps, cleansing Haruka’s chest of what’s stuck to the sides. “Rei’s still gone.”

And so Haruka hums, pulls himself apart from Nagisa and looks to Makoto. “Then let’s find him, before the dancing ends.”

It’s easily agreeable—the three of them turn for the doorway. And in a moment of poor judgment, or of weakness, or of masochism Haruka turns, and Yamazaki is further than before, turned away. But he tips his eyes up, just as Haruka looks at him.

The ballroom is blotted out once more.

This time, though, it doesn’t last long—Haruka breathes, tugs on his coat to readjust it, then follows his friends out of the room. And behind him, for now, he leaves Yamazaki, and with him the shadow of a void that, for just a moment, felt like it could be Haruka’s own.


End file.
